Lean the Fat Man's Way

Lean the Fat Man's Way is an approach I've taken with some people to get them to think about a culture of continuous improvements. Many people get a project completed that improves a process, reduces costs, or simply makes things better. But after completing the process they believe their job is done. They forget the objective is to continue to look for even a better way to improve the situation. Don't get me wrong, with the right Lean tools the solution might be optimized,  But, with the changing pace of technology, what was state of the art today could be obsolete tomorrow. The same with Lean solutions. Technology could make that solution obsolete quickly.

After one successful Continuous Improvement Initiative was completed,  I once had a very dedicated employee say, I'm glad we resolved that and put that issue behind us. I informed him that the goal was to continue to seek better solutions, a culture of continuous improvement. His response was, "So when does it stop?' "We accomplished what we set out to do!" "And besides we don't all think like you do, you have a knack of seeing opportunities and how to improve them." "How do you come up with some of these things anyway?'  

He opened the door, so I took the opportunity to tell him a story that I started using a long time ago. So long ago that I don't remember if I made it up or if I heard it from someone. I'm a pretty creative guy so it was probably me embellishing and expanding on something I had heard or read.

I told him, to constantly think Lean and Continuous Improvement you have to think like a fat man, a lazy man. Because the opposite of fat is lean. We'll use a Fat Man from here on just because it allows the lesson to flow and a point to be made.

Being a rather big guy myself, a college football lineman, I'm a rather big guy. Unfortunately many people confuse large with fat, but in this case it would work for me. I'd play the part of the Fat/lazy teacher. Then I continued with the lesson about the fat man.

I asked him if he thought a fat man ever wanted to plant grass in his yard, You know he didn't because he knew it would grow and he'd have to cut it. But once the decision was made for him by his wife, he would have to resolve the situation.  He bought a goat, but again he was a fat man, so he ate the goat when he had the opportunity.

So he needed to create a cutting device of some type. So the fat man invented a lawn mower. After pushing the lawn mower he created, he thought, if it was wider I would make less trips pushing the mower. So he widened it. But as he tried to make it wider and wider it got to heavy to push and the blades didn't cut the grass effectively. 

The fat man said if only I could get something to make my life easier cutting this grass. He thought and though and came up with the motorized push mover we know today. As he struggled pushing the mower up his back yard hill, he realized he could power the wheels too.  So he create power driven wheels to ease his work.

Well, let me ask you all a question, who do you think looked at a lawnmower and said, "I can ride that thing!" So the ride on lawn mower was created. Again the beer holder on the lawn mower? Yes, that right a fat man.

At this point my employee asked me, so we've made all these improvements, made lawn mowers wide enough where two or three passes and we're done, so is there never a time when enough is enough? I kindly responded no. I asked him if it would be easier to sit in a hammock and use a remote to cut his grass, use a lawnmower that followed tracks in the grass, or my ultimate desire, a laser that popped up every morning and trimmed the tips of the grass off.

He said, "You do spend too much time thinking about this stuff," I informed him from some research article I just read that our jobs and how we do them should change 20% a year. So in five years you shouldn't be doing any of your job the same way. I myself didn't believe it at time, but with the technological opportunities that are out there, it certainly was possible. And with the obesity of Americans continuous increasing, there are a lot of fat guys out there continuously thinking about improving processes and operations.

From a fat guy, that hates waste, I hope this little story entertained you and created a talking point about Lean and Continuous Improvement with your teams. Sometimes to be productive you need to think lazy!

So what are your thoughts?